Police practices under review in Half Moon Bay

“This is a huge problem,” Penrose said, referring to police incidents that have sparked nationwide protests. “It’s not just nationwide, it’s here at home and it’s everywhere around us.”

During the meeting, the council also signed off on the fiscal year 2020-2021 contract with the Sheriff’s Office as it is asked to do every June. The council did so despite calls to defund and restructure police.

Those calls were made in response to the killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis as well as officer involved incidents in Half Moon Bay.

Last month, deputies shot and killed a woman as she reached for a shotgun she had fired in their direction moments before. Several speakers during the meeting described the body worn camera footage of the incident, released last week, as “appalling,” and said the police response was unbefitting of what appeared to be a mental health crisis.   

And in 2014, Sheriff’s Office deputies killed a 18-year-old woman with a history of mental illness as she walked toward them with a knife.

“We see defunding the police as a starting place toward creating safe, thriving and self determined communities,” said resident Ruby Salazar, representing the Youth Leadership Institute. “We continue to fund an excessive, brutal and discriminatory system of policing and that needs to change.”

Many residents called for police resources to be redistributed to mental health services specifically, though affordable housing and homelessness services were also mentioned during the meeting.

The Half Moon Bay Latino Council during the meeting proposed a new program on the coast aimed at enhancing mental health services. The program is called Yanira Serrano Presente after Yanira Serrano, the aforementioned 18-year-old killed by police six years ago.

The program seeks to raise funds for mental health services that are “culturally and linguistically appropriate for the coastside’s diverse population” and establish a bilingual call line to offer resources and report positive or negative interactions with law enforcement with procedures for followup, among other efforts.

“[The program] does not necessarily mean defunding or eliminating the police, but rather allocates funds to help keep the community safe,” said resident Tony Serrano, brother to Yanira Serrano. “My sister’s tragedy can become a legacy of education, prevention and cooperation for the well-being of the community.”

Serrano said an online petition in support of the program gathered 300 signatures as of last week.

Councilmembers during the meeting expressed several ideas for improving policing on the coast, including keeping deputies assigned to the coast for longer periods of time to enhance relationships with the community. But they expressly disagreed with calls to defund police.

“We can’t go without a police force and we can’t go without law and order. There are a lot of guns on our streets,” said Councilwoman Debbie Ruddock. “We have to work with the police now and make that better all the time. ... At the same time we have to invest in our social services. I believe in law and order, but I also believe in the delivery of a very strong social safety net.”

Ruddock went on to note many grants have been included in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year to “very good organizations” working on mental health and homeless issues.

“We’ve come a long way and we want to build on those things,” she said.

Capt. Saul Lopez noted the Sheriff’s Office in response to the 2014 officer involved incident created the Psychiatric Emergency Response Team, comprised of two detectives and two mental health clinicians who are on call 24/7.

“PERT are basically 24-hour counselors to the deputies, even though they’re deputies themselves,” Lopez said, adding that new crisis intervention training inspired by the Portland Police Department is currently being implemented.

The city’s contract with the Sheriff’s Office in fiscal year 2021 totals $3 million, which comes out to roughly 30% of the city’s budget. The Sheriff’s Office agreed to lower their initial $3.4 million proposal by 12% due to the impact of COVID-19 on the city’s budget.

Nisbet applauded the Sheriff’s Office for lowering its cost during this financially challenging time and said the money largely covers the cost of having two deputies patrolling the city at a given time.

“What we get for our money comes primarily down to the two deputies in the field,” he said.

The city decided to disband its local police department in 2011 and instead contract with the Sheriff’s Office because of financial challenges. The move brought the city’s police budget down by 18%, Nisbet said.

One resident during the meeting called for a return to a local police department rather than contracting with the Sheriff’s Office.

“When we had a local police department, we had officers who lived in our community, knew many of us by name, knew the culture and felt the pulse of our town. … The police were regarded as fellow citizens there to help us if needed,” said resident Chris Voisard, and claimed Sheriff’s Office deputies are equipped with too much equipment and are overly aggressive in her experience.

“The ever more present and over-militarized Sheriff’s [Office] is not needed in our time,” Voisard concluded.

Councilman Harvey Rarback did not agree.

“It’s not obvious to me that having a local police department in and of itself is a good thing,” he said, adding many have accused the former city-owned department of cronyism and other misdeeds. “We get a very good deal from the Sheriff’s Office.”

Rarback went on to weigh in on calls to defund police.

“What’re we paying for? Essentially we’re paying for two deputies on average at any time and that’s it,” he said. “To me that’s the minimum of what we need to have available to us to deal with all our issues that come up.”

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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